Beyond Control

by Kat Martin

  A muscle in Cain’s jaw tightened. “Maybe catching his killers will ease some of their pain.”

  “You think the police will catch them?”

  “Someone will.”

  There was something in the way he said it. Surely, he didn’t intend to involve himself in catching the men who’d killed Miguel.

  “I didn’t realize you were a friend of my grandfather’s.”

  His features relaxed as if a fond memory had surfaced. “Joe Drake was a good man. One of the best. He gave me my first job. Did you know that?”

  Her eyes burned. That sounded so like Joe. Never a handout but always a hand-up whenever one was needed. “I wasn’t around much after I got out of high school. I should have come home more often. You’ll never know how much I regret that.”

  His expression shifted, became unreadable. “We all do things we regret.” Up close he was even better-looking than she had first thought, his dark hair cut a little shorter on the sides, narrow brackets beside his mouth that only appeared once in a while, not dimples, but something more subtle, more intriguing. “Your grandfather loved you very much.”

  A lump swelled in her throat. She had loved him, too. She’d never realized how little time they would have. “Thank you for saying that.” She needed to leave. She was going to cry and she didn’t want to do that in front of him. “I’m sorry, but if you’ll excuse me, I need to say good-bye to Conchita before we go.”

  He nodded. “There’s something I need to discuss with you. After Joe died, I waited. I wanted to give you time to grieve, but after what happened to Miguel, it can’t wait any longer.”

  She tried to imagine what Cain wanted. Something to do with Joe, she thought. “All right. You can reach me at the office. I’m there every day.”

  “I know the number. I’ll be in touch.”

  She watched as he turned and walked away, wide shoulders, narrow hips, long legs striding across the grass as if he had something important to do. What could one of the wealthiest men in Texas possibly want to talk to her about?

  Carly watched as Cain slid into the back of a shiny black stretch limo waiting for him at the edge of the graveyard.

  “I wonder what he wants,” Brittany said, voicing Carly’s thoughts.

  “He’s in the transportation business, so it must have something to do with Drake Trucking.”

  “Cain owns half of Texas American. It’s a huge corporation, so you’re probably right. Or maybe it’s something personal, something to do with your grandfather.”

  “Maybe. I guess I’ll be finding out.” Carly started making her way through the tombstones. Up ahead, the family stood on the church steps, accepting condolences. Carly squared her shoulders and kept walking.

  * * *

  She wasn’t what he’d imagined. Oh, she was as beautiful as the pictures her grandfather had proudly shown him: late twenties, taller than average, with big blue eyes and golden blond hair past her shoulders. Joe had shown him a photo of her playing volleyball on the beach so he knew what she looked like in a bikini, knew she had a dynamite figure.

  She didn’t seem concerned with her appearance the way he’d expected. He’d thought she’d be more aloof, more self-absorbed. He hadn’t expected her to be grieving her grandfather so deeply.

  He’d been sure he wouldn’t like her. Not the young woman who had accepted so much and returned so little.

  And yet as he had watched her with Miguel’s family, as he read her sorrow, the depth of her concern, he had been surprisingly moved. She felt responsible in some way for her employee’s death. She blamed herself and he couldn’t allow that to happen.

  Linc had made a vow to her grandfather. He’d promised Joe Drake that if the worst happened and his heart gave up, he’d look after Carly, make sure she was okay.

  Linc planned to do just that.

  And the best way he could take care of her was to buy her out of Drake Trucking. The best thing he could do for Carly was to send her packing—before she ended up as dead as Miguel Hernandez.

  BEYOND DANGER

  New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin brings page-turning suspense to a tale of secrets and passions turned deadly . . .

  Texas mogul Beau Reese is furious. All six feet three obscenely wealthy, good-looking inches of him. His sixty-year-old father, Stewart, a former state senator no less, has impregnated a teenager. Barely able to contain his anger, Beau is in for another surprise. It appears that Stewart has moved an entirely different woman into the house....

  Beau assumes that stunning Cassidy Jones is his father’s mistress. At least she’s of age. But those concerns take a sudden backseat when he finds Stewart in a pool of blood on the floor of his study—and Cassidy walks in to find Beau with his hand on the murder weapon.

  The shocks just keep coming. Someone was following Stewart, and Cassidy is the detective hired to find out who and why. Now she’ll have to find his killer instead. Her gut tells her it wasn’t Beau. And Beau’s instincts tell him it wasn’t Cassidy. Determined to track down the truth, they form an uneasy alliance—one that will bring them closer to each other—closer to danger and beyond....

  Pleasant Hill, Texas

  Beau could hardly believe it. His father was sixty years old! The girl sitting across from him in a booth at the Pleasant Hill Café looked like a teenager. A very pregnant teenager.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Missy,” Beau Reese said. “You don’t have to worry about anything from now on. I’ll make sure everything is taken care of from here on out.”

  “He bought me presents,” the girl said, dabbing a Kleenex against the tears in her blue eyes. “He told me how pretty I was, how much he liked being with me. I thought he loved me.”

  Fat chance of that, Beau thought. His dad had never loved anyone but himself. True, his father, a former Texas state senator, was still a handsome man, one who stayed in shape and looked twenty years younger. Didn’t make the situation any better.

  “How old are you, Missy?”

  “Nineteen.”

  At least she was over the age of consent. That was something, not much.

  Beau shoved a hand through his wavy black hair and took a steadying breath. He thought of the DNA test folded up and tucked into the pocket of his shirt. He had always wanted a baby brother or sister. Now at the age of thirty-five, he was finally going to have one.

  Beau felt a surge of protectiveness toward the young woman carrying his father’s child.

  He looked over to where she sat hunched over next to her mother on the opposite side of the pink vinyl booth. “Everybody makes mistakes, Missy. You picked the wrong guy, that’s all. Doesn’t mean you won’t have a great kid.”

  For the first time since he’d arrived, Missy managed a tentative smile. “Thank you for saying that.”

  Beau returned the smile. “I’m going to have a baby sister. I promise she won’t have to worry about a thing from the day she’s born into this world.” Hell, he was worth more than half a billion dollars. He would see the child had everything she ever wanted.

  When Missy’s lips trembled, her mother scooted out of the booth. “I think she’s had enough for today. This is all very hard on her and I don’t want her getting overly tired.” Josie reached for her daughter’s hand. “Let’s go home, honey. You’ll feel better after a nap.”

  Beau got up, too, leaned over and brushed a kiss on Missy’s cheek. “You both have my number. If you need anything, call me. Okay?”

  Missy swallowed. “Okay.”

  “Thank you, Beau,” Josie said. “I should have called you sooner. I should have known you’d help us.”

  “I’ll have my assistant send you a check right away. You’ll have money to take care of expenses and buy the things you need. After that, I’ll have a draft sent to Missy every month.”

  Josie’s eyes teared up. “I didn’t know how I was going to manage the bills all by myself. Thank you again, Beau.”

  He just nodded. “Keep me up t
o date on her condition.”

  “I will,” Josie said.

  Beau watched the women head for the door, the bell ringing as Josie shoved it open and she and Missy walked out of the café.

  Leaving money on the table for his coffee, he followed the women out the door, his temper slowly climbing toward the boiling point, as it had been ever since he’d first received Josie’s call.

  His father should be the one handling Missy’s pregnancy. He’d had months to step up and do the right thing. Beau figured he never would.

  As he crossed the sidewalk and opened the door of his dark blue Ferrari, his temper cranked up another notch. By the time the car was roaring along the road to his father’s house, his fury was simmering, bubbling just below the surface.

  Unconsciously his foot pressed harder on the gas, urging the car down the two-lane road at well over eighty miles an hour. With too many tickets in Howler County already, he forced himself to slow down.

  Making the turn into Country Club Estates, he jammed on the brakes and the car slid to a stop in front of the house. The white, two-story home he’d been raised in oozed Southern charm, the row of columns out front mimicking an old-style plantation.

  Climbing out of the Ferrari, one of his favorite vehicles, he pounded up the front steps and crossed the porch. The housekeeper had Mondays and Tuesdays off so he used his key to let himself into the entry.

  On this chilly, end-of-January day, the ceiling fans, usually rotating throughout the five-thousand square-foot residence, hadn’t been turned on, leaving the interior strangely silent, the air oddly dense. The ticking of the ornate grandfather clock in the living room seemed louder than it usually did.

  “Dad! It’s Beau! Where are you?” When he didn’t get an answer, he strode down the hall toward the study. He had phoned his father on the way over. Though he’d done his best to keep the anger out of his voice, he wasn’t sure he had succeeded. Maybe his father had left to avoid him.

  “Dad!” Still no answer. Beau continued down the hall, his footsteps echoing in the quiet. As he reached the study, he noticed the door standing slightly ajar. Steeling himself for the confrontation ahead, he clamped down on his temper, rapped firmly, then shoved the door open.

  His father wasn’t sitting at the big rosewood desk or in his favorite overstuffed chair next to the fireplace. Beau started to turn away when an odd gurgling sound sent the hairs up on the back of his neck.

  “Dad!” At the opposite end of the desk, Beau spotted a prone figure lying on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. “Dad!” His father’s eyes were closed, his face as gray as ash. The handle of a letter opener protruded from the middle of his chest.

  Beau raced to his father’s side. “Dad!” Blood oozed from the wound in his chest and streamed onto the hardwood floor. He had to stop the bleeding and he had to do it now!

  He hesitated, praying he wouldn’t make it worse, then with no other option, grabbed the handle of the letter opener, jerked it out, gripped the front of his dad’s white shirt, and ripped it open.

  “Oh, my God! What are you—”

  Beau glanced up at the shapely brunette standing in the doorway. “Call 9-1-1! Hurry, he’s been stabbed! Hurry!”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Kat Martin is the New York Times bestselling author of over 60 books across multiple genres. Fifteen million copies are in print and she has been published in 21 foreign countries, including Japan, France, Argentina, Greece, China, and Spain. Her books have been nominated for the prestigious RITA award and won both the Lifetime Achievement and Reviewer’s Choice Awards from RT Book Reviews.